The Day the Universal Translator Stood Still
by Sareki02
Summary: What if the universal translator is used more than we might think on Voyager?


_Summary: What if the universal translator is used more than we might think on Voyager?_

 _Author's Notes: A big thank you as always to Capt Acorn for betaing this story. An additional thanks to lameraextranjera and leisylaura on Tumblr for looking at my Spanish sentences - though of course if they are still off, I assume full responsibility._

 **The Day the Universal Translator Stood Still**

According to Neelix, the purple goop on Tom's plate was a delicacy on Hi'par Prime. From the description (which Tom only half listened to - with Neelix's food, ignorance was bliss), it seemed to come from an animal. Tom could only hope that animal wasn't a slug. The mass jiggled as he weaved between the tables of the mess hall, following B'Elanna to one against the window. He wasn't quite sure if was jiggling only due to his walking, or also of its own accord. As it had already been a long day, he hoped that wouldn't have to kill his dinner before eating it. They'd run smack into a nebula, which Tom would've thought was impossible, if he hadn't been the one that ran them into it. In typical nebula fashion, it screwed with the ship's systems and it had taken the better part of the day to extricate themselves from it. At least its blue and green swirls had been soothing, as he'd stared at them from the inoperative helm.

Now, Tom would have liked nothing more than some comfort food and a nice evening with B'Elanna, but they had burned through their replicator rations during Neelix's love affair with ketter root, a… thing… that managed to be both gritty and soggy at the same time.

Thus they'd found themselves at the chef's mercy, and Tom was now staring down E'tra'ia fik'lic: which evidently tasted like brush'a bleup.

Tom and B'Elanna had decided not to ask what a brush'a bleup was.

"When I was en ingenieria earlier," B'Elanna said as she set down her tray, pausing only momentarily to get situated, "Harry came over y dijo, 'B'Elanna, why no quieres-'"

Tom paused mid bite. _What the hell?_ B'Elanna must have noticed his sudden change in demeanor. "¿Qué?"

"Why did you override the translator?" Tom asked, setting his spoon back down.

"¿Por qué estás hablando en inglés?"

Tom tried to parse what she had just said. Definitely something about English. "Wait, you're hearing me in English?"

B'Elanna stared at him, clearly exasperated, until a look of realization swept over her face. "Mierda…"

"Shit," Tom muttered before switching to Standard. "The translator is offline."

B'Elanna's head sunk into her hands. "Pero tengo hambre."

"In Standard, B'Elanna."

She let out a frustrated sigh. "I have - am hungry."

Tom stared at her for a moment, not understanding. Through her accent, it sounded like 'I avam angry', but that didn't make any sense. "I'm sorry, can you repeat that?"

"Hungry!" B'Elanna snapped, this time over pronouncing the 'H'. "I. Am. Hungry." And as though to demonstrate this, she shoved a heaping spoonful of the purple goop into her mouth.

"Oh." He watched in silence as several more spoonfuls followed the first. "Wow, slow down. You will choke."

She shot him a glare. "I need food. The repairs probably take lots of time."

Tom had understood her a bit better this time, despite her mouth being partially full. He was about to offer to come with her to Engineering when panicked voices and the sound of pans crashing drew Tom's attention back to the kitchen. An alarmed Neelix rushing was towards them, his arms gesticulating as he spoke. "Tom! B'Elanna! Berp'i bmo'op sleop! Be'lp ab jip! Jip!"

"Standard, Neelix." B'Elanna said between large bites. "Everything is fine. The translator is broken."

A look of confusion, quickly followed by understanding passed over the man's features. "Yes. Good all is." He then turned to the increasing agitated crowd, raising his voice. "Good all is! Translator broken is! It B'Elanna fixes!" He then turned back to Tom, who had placed his hand firmly over his mouth to mask his smile. "I Standard learn, good, years ago!" Neelix then trotted back off towards the kitchen, trying to comfort, but only leaving confused diners in his wake.

* * *

"Weiss, divert the secondary processor by the… auxiliary mainframe." B'Elanna felt that her mouth was full of rocks as she struggled to produce the unnatural sounds of Standard.

"Yes, Chief."

She let out a (hopefully unnoticed) sigh of relief that Weiss had finally understood her on the first go. At least this was all almost over. Once this last connection was made, they could shut the whole damn thing down and reboot. Then she could stop embarrassing herself trying to speak Standard.

Her terminal flashed, alerting her that Weiss has completed the transfer. Now it was time to reboot - a process that would take around fifteen minutes. B'Elanna leaned back in her chair, closing her eyes for a moment. Her stomachs growled, still hungry despite her attempts to wolf down as much bloop bloop (or whatever) as possible before she and Tom and left the Mess Hall several hours ago.

B'Elanna heard footsteps approach her station, followed by a familiar scent. "I finished evaluating the backup systems." B'Elanna's eyes opened to see Tom, a PADD in his outstretched hand. "You were right, the nebula erased the secondary protocols… but I am not sure how."

"Un problema para otro día," she muttered before taking the PADD. A few moments passed, but she could feel Tom still staring at her. She glanced back up. "What?"

"It is interesting to hear you without the translator."

B'Elanna tossed the PADD away and crossed her arms tightly across her chest. "How bad I speak Standard? This is interesting to you?"

"No… I mean that I like hearing you speak Spanish." He leaned on her console, look nonchalant despite her scowl. "But now that you bring it up, no offense, I did wonder about that. Not that you speak poorly or anything," he stammered, his face turning red. "But every school on Earth is taught in Standard, no matter what your home language is. Was it not like that on Kessik?"

The timbre of Tom's voice softened B'Elanna's grimace. Her arms relaxed and her hands fell into her lap. How could Tom still know so little about her childhood? She looked down, absentmindedly spinning her chair back and forth. "No, school was," she paused, conjugating the irregular verb, "taught in Spanish. We learned Standard in secondary school. I took 'Standard for Engineers' at the Academy to learn the technical vocabulary. Always I used the translator. Like in Voyager." When Tom didn't say anything, B'Elanna looked back up. "You?"

"We spoke English and Standard at home. Mostly English. But my school only taught in Standard. You did not speak any Standard at home?"

B'Elanna shrugged. "My mother spoke Klingon and my father spoke Spanish. Spanish was normal on Kessik. No one spoke good Standard. Only enough to fill out forms. The majority of human colonies that are… um..." B'Elanna paused, searching for the words, "... all the people are the same - étnicamente homogénea - they are like that. English, Manderin, Russian... On Kessik it was Spanish."

"That sounds really different than on Earth."

"It is really different." B'Elanna met his eyes and wondered if he had any idea how different it had been. He'd had every advantage in life, like learning Standard as a child - his perfect accent and correctly conjugated irregular verbs infuriated her. She remembered landing in San Francisco, thinking that here she would not longer be the only different one, that she'd fit in among the sea of faces and cultures. What she didn't expect was that Earth - the inner Federation planets in general - had its own culture she knew nothing about. B'Elanna had been different all over again.

The beeping of her console interrupted B'Elanna's thoughts. "The reboot is finished." She looked back up at Tom. She couldn't help but think he looked relieved. The corner of her mouth drew up in a smirk, trying to lighten her mood and dispel memories of the past. "Ready to understand me?"

"Wait." Tom moved to kneel in front of her, taking her hands in his. "How do you say 'I love you'? In Spanish."

Her smirk turned to a grin as she replied."Te amo."

Tom placed a soft kiss on her lips before whispering, "B'Elanna, te amo."

"Yo también."

Looking into his eyes, B'Elanna set aside her resentment over her Standard language skills. Hell, if they ever permanently lost the translator, she'd just force Tom to learn Spanish. She reached her hand up to lightly caress his face… just as a loud growl erupted from her stomachs.

They both looked down at the noisy body part. Tom chuckled and said in perfect Standard, "A little hungry, are you?"

"Siempre," she replied in her native - and beautiful - language. B'Elanna turned back to her console and reinitialized the universal translator. " Vámonos. Quiero un sandwich."

 **The End**

 _End Notes: This fic is a bit different than what I normally write, more of a 'what if' story than something that is entirely compliant with canon. The idea here is that the Federation is made up of thousands - if not millions - of languages, but there is something called 'Standard' that is the language used for general communication, maybe like how Latin was used in Europe, but more widespread. Everyone still has their 'home' languages, for Tom that is English and B'Elanna Spanish/Klingon. However, not everyone speaks Standard to the same level. This usually isn't an issue as everyone has a universal translator (I like the idea that they are implanted like in DS9s Little Green Men)._

 _I was hesitant to post this story because of the Spanish in it - I'm not a native speaker - so if you are and read this and think I have it wrong, don't hesitate to leave a comment to that regard._

 _In addition, it may be a bit confusing because I've handled Standard as though it were English, but I don't think the two are the same, it's just a byproduct of the story being in English._


End file.
